Molly Jo Burke & Nathan Gorgen

Molly Jo Burke and Nathan Gorgen are an artist and designer couple and parents of young children, who collaborate on artwork that raises issues of environmentalism and waste and the nature of the materials and objects that surround their everyday lives. The artists have very different individual practices, and they use the excess material left behind by their respective processes to create their collaborative work.

With their newest series, they have begun to use the objects they collect in their family life, such as unused children’s items and leftover components from home improvement projects. This results in imaginative recycling and repurposing of substances for roles that they do not normally fill, which in turn allows the artists to address their own “waste stream.” A variety of coatings, such as silicone, plaster, wax, epoxy, and faux painting are then applied to the materials to either heighten or obscure their innate qualities. This allows the artists to play with perceptions of a material’s purpose, quality and value, as waste material and the byproducts of their life are transformed through the process. Incorporating reflections on their lives lived together, themes of landscape, play, and architecture flow through the art works.